


No Strings Attached

by thermodynamic (euphoriaspill)



Series: Stigmata [8]
Category: The Outsiders - S. E. Hinton
Genre: Child Neglect, Father-Son Relationship, Future Fic, Gangs, Gen, Hugs, Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, Latino Character, Mother-Son Relationship, Parenthood, Period-Typical Racism, Police Brutality, Slurs, Teen Angst, Uncle-Nephew Relationship, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:06:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22706671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/euphoriaspill/pseuds/thermodynamic
Summary: Everyone likes Curly, except his own son.
Series: Stigmata [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2083080
Comments: 6
Kudos: 37





	1. i

"Shit." Scott tries to nudge me in the ribcage and hits my solar plexus instead. "The lights are on."

I've been dozing off, but that sentence is enough to make me snap back upright, unfasten my seatbelt with a metallic clang; I have to focus my gaze, downright squint to see it, but that _is_ my fucking house. And if my mama catches me rolling in at three in the morning, piss drunk, driven by my even more drunk friend, I'll be lucky if I'm paroled from it before I finish high school. "Gag me with a spoon."

"You want to crash at my place?" he offers, but I shake my head instead of taking him up on it— his daddy's unemployed, so he's always watching TV on the couch even late into the night, it's not worth the risk. Besides, if my mama's actually waiting up for me and I never come home, she can catch a lie better than the drug-sniffing dogs we have at the front door of Will Rogers.

"Thanks for the ride," I say, my tone too sardonic to sound genuine; he slams on the brakes with another overly sympathetic look, long enough to let me hop out of the car, and I bend in half as he applies his lead foot and speeds off. I've had too much, nausea sitting at the base of my esophagus as I head up the drive; I push my key into the lock, square my shoulders, prepare to face my fate.

— oh, thank God. It's just Curly.

(It pisses my mama off, that I call him that and not Dad, and she makes sure to get her two cents in at least every week— 'you know how many of your friends' parents think he's your stepdaddy?' I don't even remember when it started, probably when he was in the slammer— no, if I'm being honest, long before that. It was always _Curly_ , even if I dig far enough that I hit my earliest memory, me scaling a bookshelf like a lemur while he sucked on the end of a joint and watched the entire thing— I must've been two or three. He'd told me to knock it off; I never listened to him, even back then. "I _said_ quit it, before I tell Uncle Tim you ain't mindin' me," he repeated, his voice sharpening the smallest bit as he took his mouth off of it. That's about our relationship in a nutshell.)

He's sitting in the armchair with a half-smoked cigarette, the tip burning cherry-red as he inhales. Doesn't turn around when I come inside and literally trip over my own feet in the foyer, so I take the opportunity to get the upper hand in this interaction. "Thought you was workin' Friday nights," I start conversationally, as I stride over to the kitchen and stick a glass under the tap, my voice low so I don't wake my mama or Dani up. I like keeping things with him conversational. We make better friends than we ever did father and son.

"I was, it's past closing time." He looks at me, exposes the left side of his face, the one with the teardrop tattoo. "You been drinking, _mijo_?"

There's no real scolding in his voice, it's the inherent affection in _mijo_ that makes me stiffen. He used to pass me around like a puppy you get as an unwanted gift at Christmas, trying to find a better owner for it— I have more memories of my great-uncle Luis before he died, from when I was a little kid. "Yeah," I say with some attitude, and have the balls to open the icebox and pop the tab on a Modelo, let the cold beer slide down my throat without breaking eye contact. "You want one?"

Curly's slow to anger like a cow slapping at flies with its tail; he finishes working the cigarette down to the filter, stubs it out on the overflowing ash tray before he holds his hand out. "Sure."

I sit down on our leather couch after I give it to him, pick at one of the torn holes in the seat, exposing more of the white cotton underneath. "I know boys your age run around, Mike," he says. Sounds like he's choosing his words carefully, then he snorts. "Shit, I'd been to the slammer three times by '65, me and Tim, we was the wildest kids in Tulsa." There's a sliver of a smile on his face, a mix between sheepishness and pride, before he tries to fix his expression back into his best guess at paternal scolding. "But this is a lil' late to be comin' home from a party."

I'm not worried he'll punish me, he never has— the only time he ever threatened to beat my ass was if I started selling crack, and as I've got zero interest in those kicks, I didn't sweat it. But I don't like this, a dangerous divergence from his usual MO. I know why I was born, to keep him out of Nam. He doesn't have to play at anything.

"Figured you'd be proud," I say, try to play it cool, but instead it comes out as half a plea, a high note of vulnerability in my voice. "Followin' in your footsteps, ain't I, lil' bit?"

"You got a long way to go 'fore you do that," he says, smiles, but it's not sincere— Curly only smiles when he's shaking someone down. "I don't want to be on your neck, okay? But it worries your mama somethin' fierce, she don't know where you are at night lately."

And I should be happy, with this admission, I should give him a wink and we can bond like men over this, pacifying the little woman worrying her pretty little head off. Curly gave me my first beer when I was thirteen, my first joint a year later, lets me hang around his bar whenever I want and shoot the shit with his friends. I shouldn't be surprised, most of all— everyone likes Curly, except for me, I've always been able to tell that he's all style and no substance. But my sudden urge to stick my head over a toilet says different.

"I get where you're comin' from, but I like my social life just the way it is, actually." The alcohol in my blood makes me brave; I always did have my mama's mouth, even without the added excuse. I want him to hit me, right then, I want him to smack me a good one. I want to see if anything can possibly force him to give a damn. "Don't really see that changing any time soon. What are you gonna do about it?"

"Huh?" He drains the last few drops from the bottle, wipes his mouth off with the back of his hand, studies me; he's not a tenth as dumb as he likes to pretend, his eyes are as shrewd as ever. He can feel the first sparks on dead grass before the fire, between us, and he wants to give me an out. "Whatchu sayin'?"

"You heard me." He's a murderer, he's got it inked into his skin; even though he's long since out of the game, he's as well-built as ever, he could snap me in half if he wanted. "Not Mom, not Uncle Tim, not some do-gooder teacher. What the fuck are _you_ gonna do about it, Curly?"

"I've never made you do a damn thing in your life," he says, a hint of bite entering his tone for the first time, but it's dangerously close to begging and the contempt seeps right back into me. As if that isn't the entire problem. "I'm not haulin' Tim over here, I'm not _threatening_ you, I'm askin' you make your mama's sleep a little easier—"

"So you ain't got no answer, then, what I get up to ain't your problem." I pick at a scab on my hand until it bleeds, then I laugh. "You're a goddamn coward, you know that? You always make other people do your dirty work—"

His eyes flash with cold, powerful rage, and for the first time in my life, I'm afraid of my father. "You watch your fucking mouth," he says slowly, and it's the most condemnation he's had for me in fifteen years. Doesn't finish whatever else he wants to add to that, though, bites down on the inside of his lip like he's swallowing it back down.

"Make me." I don't have the good sense to know when to quit, stand up in front of him, propelled by the sheer force of my own recklessness; angry like we're two boxers in the ring, my fear sublimating into it. I have about enough brains not to raise my fists at him and not much more. "Go ahead, knock some sense into me—"

But he doesn't land the KO, just looks me up and down, and I shrink. "Go to bed, Mike," he says, his disgust obvious, though I don't know for which one of us. I feel all of five years old again, want my daddy to tell me everything's going to be okay, but of course he can't. When I was five, he pawned me off on whatever relative was in arm's reach to get high. "Before I do somethin' I regret."

A nervous smile presses at both sides of my cheeks, one that could easily turn into a grimace; all of mine are more genuine than I want to admit. My stomach's murky and lurching like a polluted pond, I'm going to be sick in a second. I walk into the bathroom and shove two fingers down my throat, vomit up the contents into the toilet bowl, as though that'll help anything.

Everybody likes Curly. Except for me.


	2. ii

I wake up dizzy and dry-mouthed, and so disoriented I wonder if last night actually happened— when I realize it damn well must have, I groan and drape my arm over my eyes, shield them from the sunlight coming in through the curtains. I should be embarrassed I tried to stage a WWE bout in the middle of the living room, but that's not what's making me blush, remembering it.

All Curly used to want to fucking do was talk about feelings. How I felt about him coming back from prison. How I felt about my half-sister. How I felt about Luis biting the bullet. I always either stubbornly kept it zipped, or tried to deflect, because I already got enough of that crap from the child psychologist he shipped me off to— Curly's a firm believer in the therapeutic industry, from what I've gathered, this family's employed enough psychiatric professionals to staff a mental hospital by now. I don't say it out loud, it really helped my mama and everything, but I got fired from that quack for not complying and I'm not sorry about it, either. I wasn't the problem in this family, I wasn't about to accept that as a premise.

(I want to say that I don't exactly feel great, about him coming back from prison, but no one asked me. I want to say that I love Dani, but I didn't really think my opinion of Curly could get any lower, and was unpleasantly surprised. And there's nothing I'm ready to say about Luis. Maybe there never will be.)

Now I've not only _talked about feelings_ , I might as well have put a sign on my forehead like I'm a side character on The Brady Bunch. _Dad, as a impressionable teenager, I need you to provide structure and discipline, not just be Mr. Nice Guy. Please, God, make me eat my vegetables and clean my room. Boundaries are so crucial to my healthy development and prove that you care._

... Hell, I actually must've seen this plotline as an after school special. Except I don't think anyone on The Brady Bunch would challenge their old man to a fistfight, or that anyone as tatted up as Curly would be allowed inside their house.

I want to stay in bed, just keep the curtains drawn and never come out, but I'm not nearly hungover enough to justify that— swing my legs over the edge, tentatively walk out of my room when a familiar voice hits me before I can step into the shower. I peer inside the bathroom— my mama's got our new cordless phone cradled between her cheek and shoulder, using both hands to spray her hair with Aquanet and comb it six inches above her head. "Back when I got into this business, it was women's work, Christ hell," she complains, "the interviewer asked if I was good at cookin' with a recipe, said codin' was the same thing. Now would you believe what I gotta deal with? This pimply kid fresh outta TU's 'computer science' program, tryna tell me how to do my job. Honey, I got a _son_ near your age, I been runnin' in wilder boys' clubs since before I got a driver's license. You can sit right down and wipe your ass with that degree, how 'bout?"

She pauses for a moment. "Oh, Curly says I should quit if I hate it so much now, he's not exactly a pusher— don't even make the joke, Syl, God— yeah, I think I'm gonna come over to the salon this weekend, I just can't get enough volume on my own." She pulls her bangs up, then catches a glimpse of me in the doorway. "Hol' up, hon, lemme call you back in a minute," she says, and my heart falls into my stomach. "Get in here, Michael." She crooks her finger at me and slaps her comb back down on the counter. "Why is your history teacher callin' me up, sayin' you was talkin' back in class? He sounded real hacked off about it, too."

... Oh, thank God, this is just some bullshit about school and not last night. I want to tell her that he taught Curly twenty years ago and told me he wasn't surprised he ended up in prison, and that I ought to get used to sitting in the front, because he didn't expect I'd turn out much better. But I'm too old to have my mama fighting my battles for me, and know she'll show up at the principal's office with guns blazing, so I settle for, "Cause I was talkin' back in class, I reckon."

"Don't get smart," she says, but there's a smile she's unwilling to unleash playing on her lips. "You wanna be grounded for the weekend, or is a Saturday detention enough for you?"

I sure as hell wouldn't prefer the first option, so I pull out one of the easier weapons in my arsenal. "Yes, ma'am."

"Don't think you're charming, either," she sighs, but relents and picks up her eyeshadow brush. "How'd you do on your chemistry test, then? Better have been an A, amount of time I spent with those flashcards."

"Just a B+. Guess it's a good thing you work for free, huh?"

I expect her to laugh, but instead the crease in her forehead deepens, and she puts it back down, only one eyelid done in electric blue. She cups the side of my face, unusually serious. "You're so smart, baby, Jesus— when I was your age, I got sent to truancy court, I was way too busy gettin' into trouble to go to school at all. I just want you to do well, okay?"

I might say something else, but through the mirror I see Curly come out into the hallway, hair disheveled— we both, with embarrassing obviousness, try to avoid eye contact the second after we make it. "Whatchu doin' up so early?" she asks him. "You were workin' last night—"

"Couldn't sleep," he says, walks inside past me and kisses her idly on her temple, but Mom's got one hell of a finger on the pulse of all the tension in this house. And me and Curly, we contribute to most of it.

She surveys us both. "Why are y'all trying not to look at each other like you hooked up at a party and don't want to admit it? Did somethin' happen?"

"Nah, babe, don't worry 'bout it," Curly says at the same time as I stammer out, "We're good." It sure sounds real convincing.

"Okay, then." She rolls her eyes, though, she's not buying it for a second, and I swear she'd press it further if it weren't for Dani running in too, a crumpled permission slip clutched in her fist, taking up everyone's attention.

I book it before she gets that focus back.

* * *

So the thing about Will Rogers being real underfunded is that my homeroom teacher regularly just... doesn't show up, and nobody gives two shits. The other thing is that when I get threatened into a grudge fight at eight AM, that's business as usual too.

"I still don't get why you're bitchin'," Scott says as he copies my chemistry homework, "who the hell's mad because they ain't in trouble?" He's never gotten it— he loves Curly, who's always tried to buddy up to him, ply him with beer and cigarettes and stories about the wild old days. Thinks he's _cool_ , which makes me want to hurl. "Shit, talk about havin' it too good for too long— you prefer my old man? Bein' unemployed means he's got _unlimited_ time to crawl up my ass, trust me."

Yeah, I know I must sound like I won the lottery and decided to throw away the ticket— Curly's better than most of the dads in this neighborhood, he's not in the can anymore and he doesn't hit anybody (despite my best efforts) and he brings home a paycheck, he's not a deadbeat. He's a lot of fun, even if I'm begrudgingly admitting it. Ice cream for dinner, trips to amusement parks, the time he picked me and Dani up from school and took us swimming in Skiatook the whole day. Curly's everyone's best friend.

I don't mention that the problem with friends is that you can always drop them. Or my suspicion every day of my life that if he decides I'm too much trouble for him, not worth keeping the charade up any longer, he'll cheerfully pass me on to another relative and not even think twice about it. It's not like Uncle Darry isn't blatantly angling for it already, that I should move in with him for high school. Curly did it often enough when I was a little kid and the worst thing I did was cry too loud, now that I'm older? I'm surprised I haven't long since been settled in with the neighbors.

That's what I'm contemplating so hard, I don't even notice Brian Reynolds stepping into my field of vision. He's one of those seniors that got held back a year, so he's nineteen with biceps the size of basketballs— I'm not sure how he hasn't dropped out by now, but there's a decent customer base at Will Rogers I guess he doesn't want to give up. Not to mention the endless supply of underclassmen to slam into lockers. "Shepard. What's happening, huh?"

I don't respond at first, lost in my own world, which is when he really gets on the offensive. "Hey, faggot, I'm talking to you." He snaps his fingers, and I bristle; not that it's a personal insult or anything, but the uncle I was named after is queer, and I don't love hearing it. "My stepdaddy just got out Big Mac last week."

"That's real nice for your family, I guess?" How the hell is that my business?

"He's been in there for twenty years, he was a River King."

Oh, fuck.

"Had some interesting things to tell me." He steps forward a little, with the timing of an actor— the whole room watches like a wrestling match is about to go down. "He says he and every other King used to pass your aunt around like a joint." As if that wasn't bad enough, he leans in close to my face and goes in for the kill. "You know what else he told me? That your redskin mama spread her legs for every gangbanger in the city... apart from bein' a dirty snitch."

Oh, hell no— I flail right at him, and I probably would've connected, if Scott hadn't pulled at my other arm hard enough to dislocate my shoulder and yanked me back down to my desk. "Not now," he hisses in my ear, "not in _school_."

If Will Rogers kicked out every wannabe JD for throwing down, it would be empty, but I get what he's saying. Wrong place, wrong time. "I'm gonna beat your head into the concrete," Brian says, perfectly calm. "So where were you thinkin' of doin' it?"

"Not here, obviously," I say like I fight seasoned gangbangers every day of my life. Try to channel my uncles and feel like I've put on a shirt that's two sizes too large. "Gonna get the cops called on us. The abandoned lot by 43rd Street."

"Come by yourself," he throws over his shoulder as a parting shot. "If you've got the balls."

* * *

I mean, in the end, I should probably count my blessings that instead of being identified at the morgue after he, of fucking _course_ , brought two friends to flank him, my uncle's dragging me out of the police station by the ear. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one.

Tim only hollers when he's sort of pissed, 'quit runnin' in my goddamn house before you wear out my carpets' level. When he's nuclear with rage, he's got a voice like vodka on the rocks, and that's what we've hit once we've gotten into his car. "Five-eighths white," he says slowly, "is not near white enough that you can be talking back to cops."

I want to defend myself, but he has an entire speech planned. " _What_ did I tell you if you ever got picked up?" He tilts my chin up and we lock eyes. More than pissed off— though he's plenty pissed— he looks afraid. "The only three phrases out your mouth better be 'yes, sir', 'no, sir', and 'I want a lawyer present'— you don't start spoutin' off about how you're innocent or how you're bein' _racially profiled_ or fight them period. _Hijo de tu_ —" He sucks in a sharp breath. "Next time? You won't have to worry 'bout what I'm gonna do to you, 'cause the next cop will just put a bullet in your skull and say you were resisting arrest."

I try to shake him off with a nod, but he gets a firmer grip, he's going to detach my chin at this rate. "Let's take them manners out for a spin."

Tim's not a stickler for this kind of shit like Mom is, he's usually a little cooler, but I've got enough sense to tell when he's been pushed to the limit. "Yes, _sir_." He finally lets go once he's gotten his pound of flesh out of me, and I slump down in the seat. "It _was_ profiling, though, I ain't kidding. There were four of us, I was the only one they hauled in."

"That don't explain why you were on this side of town at night, up to no good, you ain't off the hook with me." Despite his anger, his fingertips are gentle as he studies my battered face, the black eye I can feel swelling up and my busted lip. "Cop do this, or were you fightin'?"

Both. I'm in no position to be arguing with him, but I do anyway, leftover adrenaline flaring up like a firework. "Maybe I was fightin', and what about it. He was disrespecting me—"

He laughs out loud. "You was bein' _disrespected_ , huh, _ese_ , you think you're some big man now?" He leans closer to me. "Lemme tell you a real fun story. So you remember how Luis had a mouth on him? A Tiger didn't appreciate it too much, so he got a little drunk and decided the best way to settle this was to shoot Luis's thirteen-year-old nephews in the head. Only reason I'm still alive is 'cause his gun jammed."

That's not the most horrifying story I've heard in my life, but it's damn close, and I try to offer him some sympathy before he keeps going. "I don't know where your lil' wannabe-hood attitude came from all of a sudden, I don't know what Curly's been tellin' you 'bout the good old days, but there's no way in hell I'm fixin' to visit you in a cell like I visited him. You wanna get into the crack game next?"

" _I'm not going to fucking sell crack_." I grip the door handle, want to walk out, but he'd catch me. "I'm not my father."

Tim pauses, then flicks me on the forehead. "Don't you cuss at me, kid, I didn't raise you in no barn."

I want to point out that he has a dirtier mouth than Uncle Soda, who was in the army and uses 'fucking' to signal that a noun's coming up, but I've got more sense than that. "Sorry."

He cranks down the driver's side window and lights a cigarette. "Heard you and Curly had quite the showdown last night."

"Wait, how would you know?"

"He called me up, we're brothers, sometimes we talk about what's goin' on with our kids," he says dryly. "And there sure seems to be a lot goin' on with you."

I slump even further down. "Yeah, what'd you tell him 'bout how to handle the prodigal son, then?"

"That if you don't have any respect for him, he dug that grave with his own hands," he says, but doesn't let me get too smug from his support. " _However_. That's the last time you ever try to taunt him into hittin' you, Jesus fucking Christ. Our stepdaddy beat on him. My daddy beat on him. He never wanted none of that in his house."

"I won't," I say, and I mean it. As angry as I am with him, my stomach still lurches with a brutal twist of guilt, remembering that.

When he speaks again, he's more gentle than I expected, like he's settled the score between two squabbling brothers and taken no one's side. I guess he did have the raising of the both of us. "You ain't so mad at your mama, and you were livin' with me for a while, when she was in rehab."

I don't like thinking about that, and I want to lash out at him for mentioning it at all, something I'd much rather leave buried. The time I called him all panicked on the phone springs to mind, when she was passed out cold, couldn't wake up no matter how hard I shook her. "She was real sick," I finally say, bite down on the inside of my cheek. "She got better."

She got better. It wasn't so long. That's all that matters to me.

He pinches the bridge of his nose, sighs, changes tack. "Listen to me. I'm gonna talk to you like an adult right now, okay? Prison is a _business_ , and every business wants repeat customers. Once you have a felony record, it's _very_ difficult to get a job that pays anything at all— plenty of people go right back to sellin' drugs or stealin' hubcaps or however they got sent inside in the first place. I thought Curly might die in there." He puts a hand on my shoulder, squeezes, the sternness drained out of him. "You're a good kid, honey, Curly and I were little demons growin' up— hell, I'd dropped out of school at your age, Curly did time for armed robbery, and you're out here thinking 'bout college. I want a lot better for you than bein' caught up in that cycle. And I promise he does too, even if he's shit at showin' it."

"I know," I say, contrite, though I don't really believe that. I would've called him up to get me if we hadn't been fighting, expected him to laugh this off.

Tim's not the touchy-feeliest person in the world, but he wraps an arm around me, pulls me into his side. "We gonna have to have this conversation again?" he asks. "If we don't, maybe I won't tell your mom."

"No, sir," I say, and I'm a hell of a lot less sarcastic now.

"You're okay, ain't you?" He holds me closer for a second. "I mean, after gettin' picked up—"

I want to confess the truth. That after being told I'm an _ain't-shit little spic_ and getting backhanded in the mouth and having my pockets turned out to see if I was selling, I'm a little shaken, to put it mildly. But I don't want to sound like a pussy more, so I brush the concern off, and he drives me home anyway.

* * *

Curly is the last person I want to see, but it's just my luck to have a dad who works the night shift, anyway, and he walks right in on me getting hammered in the garage. He flicks the lights on, illuminates all of my sin— he's none too happy about discovering me, either. "The hell are you doin'?" he asks though it's obvious, like he's fishing for more time to respond. "Shouldn't you be in bed?"

"Drankin'," I say unwisely, hold the whiskey bottle up like it's a challenge. Tilt it too far forward, spill some of it onto the concrete floor.

He strides over and snatches it from my grip— I actually try to push back against him, clutch it tighter, but he takes it as easily as taking candy from a baby. "Oh, _hell_ nah," he says as he pours the contents into the grimy sink next to the washer, "I might be drivin' you to drink, but we've got enough alcoholics in this family to fill a whole AA meeting." He narrows his eyes at me, tension gathering over his face like a stormcloud. "I ain't havin' this, you hear me?"

I'm not sure if Curly, who's a bartender, is the right person to be imparting this lesson. Irritation coils inside of me, a snake ready to strike. "Like you weren't givin' me beers when I was in eighth grade."

"I shouldn't have." He bites down on his lower lip, reveals the chipped front tooth he never took to a dentist. "I was drinkin' younger than that, but it wasn't right."

I make the mistake of looking up at him, reveal how battered I got over the course of the past few hours. "What happened to your face?" he demands, finally realizes that I've been through the wringer tonight. "You been fightin' now?"

"I got arrested," I try to spit at him, but instead I just sound small and scared, shiver as I say it, remember the backhand. Even with the whiskey circulating through my blood, I feel like I'll never be warm again. "Yeah, I was fighting before, though."

Maybe Curly and my uncles were getting locked up left and right, by my age. Maybe I am soft. But no one's ever talked to me like that before. Hit me, either.

"You got _what_." I'm starting to think my first instinct, that he would've laughed this off, wasn't right, because he looks mad enough to spit nails right at my head. "I— who picked you up from the station?"

"Tim."

I'm not fluent in Spanish, but I can cuss pretty good, and what's coming out of his mouth ain't nothing polite. He crosses his arms over his chest once he's done, and I fixate on his tattoos— 'only God can judge me' at the peak of one shoulderblade, 'Jasmine' on his bicep in faded, crooked ink, like it was done by a drunk guy, gang symbols swirling around further down. "You want to go live with Tim, then? Is that what this is all about?"

I'm not exactly _surprised_ , by this new development, but the fact that he'd give me away so easily stings like getting attacked by a nest of hornets. "Oh, wouldn't you just _love_ that," I snarl. "Can't say you've got the wrong idea, though. He's more my father than you."

I think I might've actually pushed him towards smacking me into next week, but instead he does something much worse. "Did I _ask_ to have you?" He slashes his hand through the air like a machete. "Do you think I _wanted_ this? Luis told me to get on makin' a baby, and there you were nine months later."

Time slows down, like I'm wading through molasses— tears burn the backs of my eyes, but I'll be damned if I cry in front of him, I swear I'll rip out my own eyeballs first. "Well," I start, and it's a meandering start, I don't even know where I'm going. "I mean, I always suspected it, _Dad_." I manage to put more disrespect into that than I ever managed to fit into his first name. "Thanks for finally makin' as much clear, though."

I used to wonder what was so wrong with me, that my own father couldn't love me. Now at least I have an answer.

The explosion between us might as well be a burst balloon, all the sound and thunder gone, just uncertainty and pain left. I didn't know you could actually see remorse on someone's face until now, a physical thing. "Baby, no, fuck, I didn't mean—" He reaches for me, but I couldn't be more revolted if he had bubonic plague, I step as far away from him as I possibly can. "I didn't—"

"Fuck you." It feels good to say like popping a zit feels good— you know it's wrong, that it'll leave a nasty scar, but it's too satisfying in the moment for you to hesitate. "You want me gone so bad? I'll go, then."

And what do I do but snatch up the car keys he slapped onto the dryer, before I walk outside.

He doesn't follow me.


	3. iii

The drive from Tulsa to Claremore is usually about half an hour. When you're a hacked off, soused fifteen-year-old in the middle of the night, it takes about twice that time to pull up in front of the house, and I'm no calmer than I was when I left. Pause for a moment to clutch at the steering wheel like an anchor— Christ, I can't believe I made it here alive, didn't even knock over a mailbox or kill any hapless rodent— but I still can't get my breath back into a steady rhythm.

Well, fine, then. If Curly wants me out so bad, he can get exactly what he asked for, I won't beg to stay even if Mom and Dani will miss me. Not like his place is my only option in the world, and I keep thinking that as I walk up the stairs of the nice colonial and bang my fist against the door. At least Aunt Lydia's a great cook.

"Mike?" Uncle Darry's there in a matter of seconds, aiming a baseball bat towards my skull; I suppose I should count myself lucky that it wasn't a sawed-off shotgun. He drops it on the floor once he sees it's me, reaches to smooth down the ever-present cowlick in his hair. "Do you know what time— what are you doin' here? Did somethin' happen?"

"Curly's a dick," I announce, except it sounded a lot more tough in my head than it does now. "I'm movin' in with you."

He doesn't even pause to consider it. "Oh no," he says. "Not a _chance_. I've waited twenty years to finally have an empty nest, I ain't takin' in a new kid this close to the finish line."

"Fine, well, then, I guess I'll go move into the woods, since my whole family's told me to get bent—"

"You know what I wish you hadn't inherited, your momma's taste for melodrama." He puts a hand on the small of my back and leads me inside anyway, he wasn't about to leave me out on the porch. "Trust me, you'd hate it here, there's rules in this house... what'd Curly do, stock the fridge with the wrong brand of beer? Try to drag you to Mass again? I'm at a bit of a loss here."

"It's gotta be better than mine," I say, though Uncle Darry's chore chart is a lot more detailed than the one my mama's got on the wall. God, of all the places I could've gone, I really decided to pull up here. But Tim never would've taken my side, probably would've marched me right back home and tried to mediate all this, which was the last thing I wanted. Darry at least dislikes Curly as much as I do, is an easy target for sympathy. Besides, Aunt Lydia and my cousins Jack and Sarah are in Maryland, visiting Frannie— sorry, _Francesca_ — at Loyola this weekend anyway. At least I won't have an audience for this family feud.

I hoped he wouldn't, but he surveys me once he's marched me into the kitchen and flicked on the light, real suspicious-like, takes an exaggerated sniff. "You been drinkin'?" he asks, a phrase I've been hearing all too often lately. Has that same bloodhound sense for it I swear is an extended family trait.

I hadn't swallowed too much, figured I'd sobered up convincingly before I knocked on his door, but I can't lie when being stared down by those ice-green eyes. I wonder how my mama managed being raised by him, and how she ever managed to get in so much trouble. "Lil' bit, I guess—"

"You drove here, _drinking,_ at _night_?" he demands, processing the level of recklessness and getting louder as his brain catches up. Uncle Darry's another one who's a fan of his 'yessir's, but all I can bring myself to do is nod before he's clutching me by the shoulders. "That was a damn fool thing to do, I don't care _what_ Curly said. You could've cruised yourself right into an eighteen-wheeler like your grandparents—"

"He said he wished he hadn't had me. That a good enough reason?"

Darry regards me with a mix between pity and skepticism. "He really say that much out loud?"

"He might as well have." I, somehow, manage to put on my best impression of a lawyer and try to plead my case— that's what I want to be, assuming I make it out of high school alive. It comes dangerously closer to begging than I think they allow in a courtroom. "Look, I'm not gonna be trouble, okay, I promise, I'd be good." Try to sound reassuring and calm. "I mean, I guess better than this—"

Now his face has as much abject pity as you give a frozen bird that's fallen out of a tree. "I don't love you because you're good." I blink rapidly; he leads me over to the living room couch. "Sit down. I wanna talk to you."

"Yeah?" I say, my throat dry like I've run ten miles without a drink of water. I sink into the leather cushions and kind of wish I could sink straight into the floor. "What about?"

"It's like looking in a mirror, looking at you, half the time." He shoves his hands into his pockets, laughs bitterly, but not at me. Stares up at the ceiling like he's laughing at God, maybe. "I couldn't stand my daddy either, when I was your age. Hated his guts, if you want me to be honest. He'd just gotten out of the pen and I wished he'd go right back inside, before he ruined everyone's lives again."

"For real?" It's not exactly a well-kept secret that he's not Curly's biggest fan; I still remember all the screaming arguments he had with my mama back in the day, begging her to use her _fucking_ brain and just divorce him already. But I never linked that back to my long-dead grandfather before, though I know he used to be a gangbanger, in the fifties.

"Yeah, he was a lot less nice than Curly, though," he scoffs. "He chased me around the house with a belt once and said he'd make me wear my ass for a hat if I didn't quit mouthin' off to him, you got it real easy compared to me."

I raise an eyebrow. "Mom never told me anything like that 'bout him. She said y'all's mama was the scary one."

"Oh _please_ , she was the only girl, don't even get me started," he says with an eyeroll more suited to his teenage kids, "you think daddy's lil' princess is an accurate source of info? Trust me, he was a real hardass." He sits down next to me, then, drains any sense of humor from his voice. "I was ashamed of who I was, what I came from... after he got released, I decided the last thing I ever wanted to be was a man like my daddy. All my friends in high school were rich kids from the West side, he never met them. I couldn't handle anyone looking at me and figuring I'd roof houses my whole life— or sell homemade meth." He slides his tongue between his teeth. "He thought I was a sellout with no moral compass, I once told him he had all the ambition of a shingle and about as much sense. It got real ugly."

The back of my throat tastes sour, like I've bitten down on the slick of a lime slice. "What are you tryna say?"

"That I don't know what kind of man he'd be now, or how he feels 'bout who I became, or any of that," he says. "He died when I was twenty— I don't have anyone to ask except a headstone. Nothin' about our relationship is ever gettin' better, and I've had to live with that my whole adult life. Maybe I don't want you to end up the same way."

"I didn't come here for you to tell me to _forgive_ him," I say with the same inflection you'd use in a production of Julius Caesar— _et tu, Brute?_ "You're the last person I thought would tell me that."

"I know I've ragged on him, babe, and most of it he's deserved," he says with a heavy sigh. "But he ain't a bad man, or even that bad a father... I've met a lot of those, he doesn't quite qualify." He picks up one of the coasters on the coffee table and turns it over in his hands. "He ain't had the easiest time of it, he was born into this shit and never saw much of a way out. I mean, he first went to jail when he was _twelve_ , for Chrissakes— slingin' was his whole world." He pauses again, reflects. "Curly... he's given you better than he had, I can throw that much credit his way. I'm not sure if I'd want to be judged by all the screwups I've made, as a parent, and believe me, I've made more than my share."

I chew on the guilt, try to digest it, spit it out through my teeth. "How long do I gotta pay for it."

"What?"

"How _long_ do I gotta pay for it? Did I do that to him? Did I give him a whole deprived childhood of crime?" I laugh, stare off at one of the replica paintings he's stuck on the wall. "Guess I got a lot of room to make mistakes with _my_ kids. I can tell them I at least never left them alone to score on the street, and they better be grateful for it."

My early childhood's just a mess of loud noises, shapes without form, the smell of spilled liquor and cheap grass and perfume; I don't have a lot of clear memories from when we lived on the North side, in our apartment, I don't know why. He wanted me around every now and then, like a gang mascot, I guess, a fun novelty that could be passed along when I started fussing.

If he remembered to pass me at all.

I mean, Christ, I don't want to exaggerate this, like I was that girl Genie whose father tied her to a chair in a closet for thirteen years. Curly wasn't _that_ bad.

He just wasn't that good, either.

_My mind goes down the dark hallway no matter how much I want to stop it. I lied, my earliest memory, it's not climbing some bookshelf; I'm younger than that, maybe two, maybe three. Loneliness gets into your veins like ink, it doesn't wash out, and I'm there by myself in the apartment. The sun went down a long time ago, long enough that when I try to turn the dial on the TV, just for something to fill the silence, all I get is the crackle of static. I miss my mama but I don't know where she is— if I really force myself to apply my brain to this scene, she's passed out drunk somewhere, as little as I like to dwell on that. I don't miss my daddy because he's not enough of an imprint, but at this point I'd settle for him. There's a worn-out teddy bear dangling from one of my hands, one I nearly ripped the ear off. I suck at it until the fibers make my mouth fuzzy and thick._

_The front door swings open eventually; Curly looks stunned that I'm there at all as he slaps his gun down on the kitchen table, the side of my mouth smeared with chocolate sauce, dressed in a threadbare t-shirt. I start bawling once I see Luis, and it's his arms I shoot myself into, though he's drenched in blood; a red stain cuts across his torso, seeps into the skin of his jaw and neck. He looked after me, he always showed up in the end— bought half the things in our apartment, too, Mama's Givenchy dress and mink coat and the expensive toys he got me, the ones Mama had me make a show of playing with when he came over. It's only now that I realize all of his gifts came with strings attached, that he gave them to keep people dependent on him, grateful. Maybe that's why I always rejected Curly's bribes, with no small amount of disdain, either. I'd already had my love bought, and with a lot more than he ever could offer._

_I'll never forget the way Luis looked at me as he swept me up; he never saw me as a child, I'm not even entirely sure he ever saw me as a person, more like a well-oiled switchblade. A replacement for what Tim had turned out to be. He holds me in his arms, a hand under my ass like I'm still a baby, weightless; he could be comforting, sometimes. "Shush, now, boys don't cry," he says, running a hand through my hair while I snuffle into his t-shirt. The blood gets_ _on my nose and cheeks. "Nah,_ un hombre, de veras— _you_ _ain't a boy, you're my little man, ain't you?" He turns to Curly while I cling to him, his voice incisive as a scalpel. "Give him to Tim, for fuck's sake, if you can't manage to remember the last place you left him."_

" _Tim's a traitor," Curly says, and the coldness startles me. I know now that he was lying for Luis's benefit, maintaining an image— more importantly, I know now that he was as high as a kite— but I didn't understand then. I thought Curly was just being mean. "Last I checked."_

" _I'm pretty certain he can keep the kid alive, though," Luis says, bounces me up on his hip. "Until he's old enough to be useful, anyway."_

"Michael—" Darry says it gentle, breaking me out of my reverie, and I tremble. "I'm not askin' you to do it for him, to give him some kind of absolution. You took after me, you're good at holdin' grudges, but listen... you'll never be able to punish him enough, it won't give you the satisfaction you think you're gonna get. You're just eatin' at yourself."

He cradles my head, pulls it into his chest; I don't cry, but it's a close thing.


	4. iv

_I burst into the bathroom, hard enough that I send the door flying into the adjacent wall._ _"Thought I told you to knock," Uncle Tim says, but without any heat, his face lathered thick with shaving cream. "Ain't you supposed to be gettin' ready for school?"_

_I scowl, my friends think living with my uncle means I can get away with everything, but that couldn't be farther from the truth— there's a million rules here, about when to go to bed and eat dinner and do homework and get chores done, and he's always around to catch me breaking them too. My mama only told me to do stuff when she was sober and Curly never did, period. I hop up on the counter and watch him shave lines down his cheeks. "What was Curly like? When he was a kid?"_

_"A brat," he says, "so not that different from you, I guess." I stick my tongue out; he smirks at me. "He was always in some kind of mess, Christ. Playin' chicken with lit cigarettes and fallin' off telephone poles all the time... he never could use his head for love or money."_

_"Do_ I _remind you of Curly?"_

 _"Yeah, a little,_ nene _," he says, cups my jaw in his hand— I wrinkle my nose, I ain't no baby, but good luck convincing him of that. "You look like he did when he was younger. You're a lot smarter than him, though. I'd like to think I had somethin' to do with that." He rinses the razor off in the sink and starts applying aftershave. "You want to see him? I'll take you next time I go, he'll tell you himself."_

 _I don't. Mama used to make me, back when he first went inside, but then he told her_ you don't have to bring him if he doesn't want to come _and I got the message. I already see Mama every week at the hospital and that's enough visits for me._

_"I should've kept his ass in line," Tim says, though more to his reflection than to me. "Kid worshipped me growin' up— I tried to tell him to knock it off, before he got into trouble he couldn't talk his way out of, but I set a real bad example for him and that was worth more'n a thousand words. I was worse than him, back in the day."_

_"Really?" I can't imagine it, though I know he used to be a gangbanger too, before I was born. He seems like he came out of the womb doing bills at the kitchen table and talking about mortgage payments._

_"Uh-huh_ _." He focuses his gaze on me again. "You think I'm tough on you? Strict?"_

_If I were older, maybe I'd see the cracks of insecurity in his carefully-constructed expression, but instead I pull another face at him, the kind Mama would tell me it'd get stuck as. "Yeah."_

_"Good," he says without hesitation. I get it even then, the hidden meaning— so I don't turn out the way Curly did, a criminal like my daddy, a menace to society. Understand that he's lurking inside my bloodstream, waiting to pounce. "Someone's gotta be."_

_Then he scoops me up to get me off the counter. "I'm too big," I whine into his shoulder, breathing in Old Spice and the cigarettes he told Aunt Gabi he quit smoking, "Tiiim—"_

_"Yeah, yeah, you're my little man," he says, and I can hear the fond exasperation in his voice as he settles me back down on the floor, but I can also hear Luis, and I shudder even in his arms. "You know I love you, right?"_

_I do. Not even because he said it, though he doesn't much, doesn't want to wear the words out. Because he comes to pick me up from school that day, and the day after that, and the day after that._

* * *

Dani's sitting on the porch when I pull into the driveway, dressed in worn cutoffs and a hot pink top, a stolen cigarette between her lips. "Wow, you're in for it," she says with relish as I head up, not giving myself the chance to hesitate. "Daddy's _so_ pissed." That's a previously unspoken sentence in this house, I can tell you that much. "I can't believe you _stole his car_. He says even he never got busted for grand theft auto."

"Oh please, it's not grand theft auto if it's your daddy's car, what's he gonna do, call the cops on me?" Then I snatch the cigarette out of her hand and take a drag, fortify myself before I face the inquisition waiting for me inside. "Ain't you a little young to be smoking? You're twelve, Mom's gonna kill you when she finds out."

"You're too young to drive," she comes back with, and well, she's got me there, though hardly anybody in our neighborhood obeys that particular law— Scott's been rolling around in his dad's truck since he was twelve, and even Uncle Darry didn't think twice about sending me home by my lonesome. "And I'm almost thirteen," she says, like she hasn't been saying as much for the past five months.

Enough hell's broken loose once I step inside that they don't even notice me at first. "Okay, Tim, rake me over the coals, I don't know who half his friends are," Curly says sharply, paces around with the phone, "all I know is that he's got them— yes, I'm well-aware that I'm a terrible father who sent him runnin' for the hills, and that this is all my fault, you ain't the first person— yeah, and why didn't you say anything when he got _arrested_ , huh, that slip your mind? You didn't think that's something you should maybe tell his parents?" There's a long pause, and then his voice hardens even more. "No, I don't think it's fucking funny at all, actually." He slams the phone down and flips the receiver off for good measure. "God, when that lil' _malcriado_ screws up, he don't do it by halves, does he?"

" _Malcriado_?" Mom jumps in, ready to go; I feel some savage glee, seeing how much sleep I've made Curly lose on his drawn face, but she looks so afraid and pale that a sea of remorse floods my stomach. "Dammit, at least he's fifteen, he has some excuse. What are you gonna blurt out next, that Darry wanted me to get an abortion? Really hammer the final nail in the coffin?"

I didn't know that.

Curly says a phrase I never thought I'd hear leave his mouth. "Fuck, should we call the fuzz?"

"Ain't we had enough of them by now?" Mom says waspishly. "My daddy always used to say that either he'd come down on the boys, or the cops would. Guess you picked the cops."

I'm starting to feel bad enough for Curly to announce my presence. "Uh... hey," I say with a feeble wave. "I'm back?"

My mama takes one look at me and goes right from hollering at Curly to bursting into tears— I'm frozen to the floor from shock, she's not much of a crier, and it's like watching a volcano erupt. "Have you lost your fucking mind?" she asks, and pulls me into her arms— I outgrew her by the seventh grade, but she still clutches me hard enough to contract my ribcage, then gets me by the shoulders and gives me a shake. "Did you open your skull up and drop it onto the floor before you left the house? You remember how your grandparents died? You know what I've been here thinkin', whole time you were gone, God knows where—"

"I wasn't God knows where," I manage to get out once she's released me from her death grip. "I was with Uncle Darry—"

"You were with _Uncle Darry_?" Her voice reaches a level of shrillness I thought only bats could hit. "And I guess Uncle Darry just figured this was nothin' worth tellin' your parents about, either? Curly, are you hearin' this, do we apparently not get any say in what happens with our own child?" She's mad enough that at least she's quit crying, thankfully. "No, forget it, I'll be pissed about that later. When I'm done with you—"

"I'll handle it."

Curly speaks up for the first time since I walked through the door, says it pretty quiet. Mom bites down on her lower lip. "This ain't exactly the time for a slap on the wrist."

"I'll handle it," he says again, with some steeliness I didn't know he was capable of. "I can do my own dirty work every once in a while."

Well. He hasn't forgotten that one in a hot minute, clearly.

"Fine," she says, scrubbing an arm across her face, "all right, that's it. Dani, go put your shoes on and get in the car, we're goin' to the mall. And by the time I get back—" she's pointed a finger at me and Curly in turn— "y'all better have worked your shit out. It's gone on a hell of a lot longer than I should've let it, maybe that much is on me, but I'm tired of relivin' the greatest hits of '61 after my daddy got out of the slammer."

I didn't even notice her come in, but Dani looks real hesitant to leave, bribed with the mall or not. I wish I could blame her. If it weren't my head on the chopping block, I'd sure want to stick around and see Curly laying down the law, too.

Mom sighs. "I'll let you play your Cyndi Lauper cassette in the car."

She's out of there like a shot, and I'm starting to wish I had some witnesses around, once she's pulled on her sneakers and slammed the door behind her. Starting to wish I hadn't tried to piss him off half as much as I did— _hey, Dani, on a scale of 1 to 10, exactly what number did he work himself up to?_ Curly's not talking yet, and though somehow I know he won't slug me, that's not much consolation when I still don't know if he wishes I hadn't come back at all.

"Christ, I ain't been no kind of father to you, have I," Curly says resigned as anything. He pinches the bridge of his nose before he sits down heavily; beside me on the couch, but far enough away that we don't disturb each other, his weight barely shifts mine. When he speaks again, it's in Luis's voice, one that can arrest me even now. "You know what, I tried givin' you space, I tried givin' you gifts, I let you run your own show after I got out of jail— I didn't want to come home and start swingin' my dick around. And hell, maybe you'll still never like me, fine, maybe I don't deserve it. You don't have to. But I sure didn't take your little ass away from the North side for you to start actin' like some thug."

"I didn't ask for your fucking bribes, you never heard that Beatles song, _Can't Buy Me Love?"_ I hiss. Great, so now I know the number's about 100 and rapidly climbing. "The only thing I ever wanted was for you to stay the hell out of my business."

"Don't cuss me," he says bluntly. "You ain't my roommate, you're my son, and I do love you. You don't _have_ business that ain't mine too."

I'm tempted to keep arguing, but 'I love you' stops me dead— if he's ever said it to me before, I must've been too young to remember. I just nod, my throat tight, and he looks a lot less like Luis at second glance; deeper hollows under his eyes, the black ink of the teardrop standing out more starkly against his skin. He looks afraid. I don't know how to parse that expression on him, and I'm not sure if I want to.

"You said I'm a goddamn coward." I cringe internally, but he's not so accusatory about it. "I can't say I didn't pass that down, though. Tell me why you're really angry."

I stare out the window, at the swingset he built for Dani. No, that's not true, as much as I'd like to think of myself as Cinderella here— he built it for both of us, I just refused to get on it. "I ain't."

"Don't lie to me, you ain't half as good as you think." My gaze snaps back towards him. "You're fucking furious, so spit it out already."

"You don't want that," I fire off like a warning shot, because he doesn't, Christ, he does not know what the hell he's even beginning to walk into. "You don't want none of that."

"You remind me a lot of myself," he says with no small amount of regret, and I bristle, I've gotten too damn many comments lately about how similar people consider us. "Think we both like to play it close to the vest, but it's gone on for too long." He messes up his hair in the front. "I'd rather listen to anything you throw at me than watch you slip away for good."

"I don't know, you fucked around on my mom, let's start with that one." I say it with my best sneer, too, try to get the upper hand again. Hate myself for it, though, because it's not like I want Dani _gone_ , as annoying as she can be, I don't want that at all. I guess I want her to have been my mama's actual daughter, to erase the truth, that her real mother dropped her off on our porch with a garbage bag of clothes. There's a lot about this family I wish I could take some correction fluid to. "You got a lot of nerve, okay, you sure had a lot of nerve showin' back up here at all after she threw you out, pretendin' you deserve everyone's forgiveness."

"Don't pretend this is about her honor." He raises an eyebrow, nothing's fooling him, no matter how much sheer venom I spit his way. "Tell the truth, you think you're enough of a man now to take me, you can do that much."

I'm mad enough I want to throw a punch at him, but instead I'm mad enough that I do let the truth slip, not even any alcohol involved that I can conveniently blame it on. "Just drop the act already, you never gave a damn what happened to me, you still don't— all you ever do is leave, not that you were around much to begin with." I can't handle it, his attempts at getting closer to me— I managed to keep it together fine without him for years, I don't need to get burned again with false hope. Visits to Big Mac spring to the forefront of my mind and they don't go anywhere and if I don't cut this shit out in about the next second, I'm going to lose it. I shut my eyes in what's too long to look like a realistic blink. "What do you think we can do, pretend to be some family straight off a sitcom set now that you finally got your shit together? Man, _fuck_ you. I _hate_ you."

He doesn't say anything, just looks hurt despite his best attempts at not looking hurt, and the anger that felt so good a second ago curdles inside of me, seems that much less righteous and justified. That sounded tuffer in my head, and it's not even the whole truth either— maybe we both do have cowardice in common, because I can't force the right words past my lips, tell him. Tears blur my vision, and when I try to blink them away, more come to take their place. "I don't know why I'm not enough—" I don't know how to finish the sentence, either. For him to want me? Like me? Love me? I literally can't articulate it, something buried deep inside my bones. Repeat myself, in frustration. "I don't know why I'm not _enough_ for you."

"Baby, fuck—" He exhales hard, reaches forward and clutches me by the forearms. We have the same eyes; I never really noticed that before now. "You've always been enough for me."

And I guess I can cry in front of my father after all, because I'm suddenly a mess of tears that wouldn't fall before. I try to get a grip one last futile time, but I might as well have been trying to hold back a tsunami; my whole face crumples and I'm heaving with the force of it. He holds his arms out to me and I hesitate, want to see if he'll pull me into them and he does. I could count the amount of times we've hugged in the past few years on one hand. "Dad, I didn't mean it, I'm sorry," I hiccup, though I did.

He takes it all in stride; fortunately his shirt already had a grease stain across the front, because that thing is little more than a tissue now. "No, just let it out, _cariño_ ," he says nicer than I deserve, rubs my back some. "I don't need your apologies."

"Sorry," I mutter again anyway once I've worn myself out, wipe my nose on my sleeve, feeling better but embarrassed as all hell. At least there's no one else around in the house; I would've about sank down to the earth's core otherwise.

"Look, I might've fucked up as a dad in 'bout every way imaginable, but I never pushed no 'boys don't cry' shit on you," he says, indignant. "I'm blamin' your emotional constipation on Tim."

It's not the right relative. He still keeps me pulled to him, and I don't try to squirm away; it doesn't feel so bad to be comforted by him, after all the fighting we've been doing. "You know me and Tim are half-brothers," he finally says. "We got different fathers."

"Wait, you are?" I didn't, actually, though the few times Tim referred to 'my' daddy should've given me an idea.

"Yeah, my daddy was someone else, my mama got bored in the middle, I guess." He pulls me tighter, and I relax into him, in spite of myself. "He didn't really wanna be involved; he let her pretend Tim and Angela's was mine, even name me after him. But my mama was drunk one day when I was your age, trashed out of her mind, she spilled the whole story to me. I showed up to his house, to confront him— he slammed the door in my face, about. Said the best thing for me to do was stay gone. Then he came to my school a few months later and wanted a second chance."

"What happened?" Somehow I'm guessing this doesn't have a happy ending.

"He got tired of me, I guess, novelty wore off," he says. "His wife wouldn't have liked it, that he had another kid, he was trying to keep it a secret from her— he had two other boys, ones with her that he wanted. It ended, anyway, I ain't seen him in twenty years. He could be dead by now, for all I know." He sounds more like he's talking to himself than to me. "I used to wonder what was so wrong with me that my own father couldn't even love me. Used to wonder maybe, I dunno, if I was smarter, more interesting, not... myself, he would've stuck around." He laughs bitterly. "Spent my whole life thinkin' I wouldn't take after my stepdaddy, guess I ended up takin' after my actual one, didn't I."

"You didn't, shit—"

"Shush." He runs his fingers through my hair, and I settle under his arm like a cat that's being petted. "I'm not gonna insult you, you're real smart," he says quietly. "I didn't want a kid and I wasn't ready for one, either— Luis didn't want the draft board sniffin' around after me, so he told me to get on one of the easier exemptions. But me fucking up, that ain't on you, that was never on you. That's on me."

"Is that why you always made people watch me?" I sound like a little kid again, afraid and uncertain. "Why you didn't want me around?"

He snorts harshly, but I can tell he's angry with himself, not with me. "I didn't want you around because my whole life was one big party. I don't want to say... you know what, I'll say it, I had a lot of fun. I never grew up at all before you were born, I'd never been responsible for anything— any mess I was ever in, Tim cleaned it up for me." He sighs. "You didn't do shit, trust me, you weren't some demon baby like that kid in The Shining. I just... wasn't ready to be a father, I wish I could say somethin' less pathetic."

I wish I had any condemnation left but I don't. For maybe the first time, I realize that he really can't go back. "You're the reason why I left," he adds quietly. "I mean, not the only one, but the biggest. I looked at you even when you was a baby, and the last thing I wanted was for you to grow up to be a man like your daddy. I saw the way Luis looked at you, too, I knew you'd be out slinging soon enough, and you'd be trapped the same way I was. That you'd do shit you could never take back, if you even lived long enough to regret it."

"You ain't so bad," is the only thing I can come out with, maybe Darry is getting to me. But I'm not ashamed of him. I don't want him to ever think that.

He smiles, a bittersweet cast to it. "Jesus, you want to be a _lawyer_. When I was fifteen, I jumped eighth graders in back alleys and hoped my uncles would finally get me a heater for my birthday. Yeah, I'm hopin' you're gonna grow up to be a better man than me." I curl closer into him. "You scared? When they picked you up?"

I couldn't admit it to anyone else, but I was bawling into his shirt a few minutes ago, so I've long since stopped looking tuff anyway. Besides, he's been honest with me, and I can tell it isn't easy on him. "Yeah." I swallow so hard it hurts. "I was real scared. Cop banged me up a lot."

"I know you were. I was too, the first time," he says, which makes me feel like about fifty percent less of a pussy for having blinked back tears in a holding cell. "So it better be the last. I know I've never put my foot down much before, but I'd rather not visit you behind bars— fuck, you could've been stabbed, forget the fuzz, in a fight with gangbangers." He traces the edge of my busted eye. "The hell are you doin', tryna get my attention, see if I'll stop you? Did you think I'd be impressed? 'Cause I will, and I definitely ain't."

I blush. I always hated the way he could read people just by looking at them, considered myself immune to that little ability, but I guess I'm a lot more obvious than I want to pretend. "I'm not gonna leave you anymore— you probably don't believe that, but I mean it, and maybe you will someday." He brushes a kiss to the top of my head, and I about die a thousand deaths all over again, but the part of me that likes it trumps the part that's embarrassed. I needed to hear that said out loud more than I want to admit. "I'm not gonna make you live with Tim, either, you ain't that much trouble. Hell, I'll ground you myself, will that make you feel all reassured?"

"Uh... no?"

I'm starting to get the sense I just walked into a trap I laid for myself. "Yeah, well, tough shit, you're not gettin' anything you want anymore. For the next month, you can enjoy all the comforts of home." He pauses for a second. "Damn, this really ain't half as hard as I thought it'd be."

"Wait, that's real harsh," I have to sputter, I've never been grounded longer than two weeks before managing to convince Mom to cut me loose, and often sooner. Then again, I can't say I've ever been in this much trouble before, either. "A _month_?"

"Bub," he starts, trying to remain stern but amusement seeping through the cracks, "in the past twenty-four hours, you've rolled in drunk at three AM, gotten picked up by the cops from a grudge fight, chugged some more booze in the garage, been disrespectful as hell, stolen my car, and made your mama cry. Honestly, even I'm impressed by how much shit you managed to get yourself into."

"But... I mean... we had a real heartfelt and touching conversation about it?"

"This look like an episode of Leave It to Beaver?" he asks without sympathy. "Hey, we can spend valuable father-son time together, like they do on them sitcoms. And in court-mandated parenting class workbooks. Christ, you think I'm bad, you would not _believe_ the kind of assholes they get in there. At least I never had to be told not to shake you until your brains smacked into your skull."

"We've got nothin' in common."

"We can play catch in the backyard," he says with a languid shrug. "Maybe I'll finally figure out how to tell all those godawful hair metal bands apart on MTV. World's our oyster."

That's the lamest thing I've ever heard in my damn life. Or maybe the most comforting.


End file.
